I glanced at him sitting there so quiet and focused. Pensive.
Finally, he nodded and raised a brow. “I hadn’t expected this much insight.”
“From me?” I asked with a huff.
He frowned. “I had no fucking clue what to expect from you, Carina. But a complete and thorough analysis of smuggling routes wasn’t at the top of the list.”
I sat back and shrugged. Dismissed again. “Fine. I guess this is your way of ‘suggesting’ I shut up and butt out.” I rolled my eyes.
“No.” He narrowed his eyes. “Not at all. Just…” He shrugged and almost smiled. “Just color me surprised.”
But not bothered?
Annoyed?
Peeved?
Threatened?
I looked off to the side. “Yeah, well, I know how men hate to be told when they are wrong.”
“You don’t knowme.”
I swung my gaze to him.
I knew how he felt deep inside me when he made me shatter with one orgasm after another.
That wasn’t the angle he was projecting right now.
Watching me seriously, openly, he cleared his throat before continuing. “Because I would only hate it if I were ignorantly behind a faulty plan that could be proven with the loss of men or product.”
It wasn’t athank youfor my input, but it felt awfully damn close to one. I never wanted to lose the memory of this moment.
11
MAKSIM
Iwasn’t sure what to do with Carina after she dissected and analyzed the proposals for an alternative smuggling route. When I sat down for breakfast, I hadn’t counted onthat.
After how I’d left her sluggish and sated, asleep in her bed, I faced the problem of how things would be between us going forward.
From icy antagonism and neither of us trusting each other to… fucking like wild with an uncontrollable thirst for more?
Talk about a one-eighty.
That wasn’t sustainable, hence my tension on what it would be like to face her the morning after.
However, with her blurting out her critique of the papers I had on the table, I hadn’t faced the rush to devise how we would live together or even what she should do here. Thinking up an agenda for her was one more responsibility on my shoulders, one that I had no room or time for with all the changes that were happening with my father dying and the shipments of drugs andarms needing to be maintained. I didn’t intend to babysit her, and I hadn’t considered dating her or really getting to know her.
The bond that Adrik and Elena had was the real thing.
Being arranged in marriage to this spitfire of a Cartel princess couldn’t result in that.
Yet, I realized my assumptions about my wife might have been wrong.
“Anything else?” she asked, raising her brows and tilting her head to the papers.
She’d been thorough, emotionless, and sharp with her comments. Like she really knew what she was speaking about. And it had thrown me off. Her offering to “help” even more, almost like she was talking down to me, threw me off even more.
